


After the Wake

by wbh



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Bodhi Rook Needs a Hug, Bodhi had two moms cause I like that headcanon, Gen or Pre-Slash, Grief/Mourning, M/M, Post-Battle of Yavin, Stargazing, references to canonical mass murder, references to injuries
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-16
Updated: 2017-09-16
Packaged: 2018-12-30 07:42:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,941
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12103968
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wbh/pseuds/wbh
Summary: Luke, finding the celebrations on Yavin IV increasingly depressing, leaves the base to spend some time alone outside. He stumbles on someone who had a similar idea.





	After the Wake

Luke ducked out of the celebration following the award ceremony at the rebel base far sooner than anyone might have expected. While adrenaline and good spirits had been running high for all the Rebellion on Yavin IV after the Death Star was successfully destroyed, time had since settled everyone’s emotions into a strange mix of joy and grief. Wedge Antilles, the only other pilot to survive the trench run and therefore automatically Luke’s fast friend, had drunkenly tried to explain to him that the mood of the whole affair felt like an old Corellian tradition called a wake: a party to commemorate and celebrate the dead. Luke had told Wedge that sounded a little crazy. In mock-appalled defiance, Wedge had then done yet another shot of some sort of liquor that smelled like he’d brewed it in his own engines, and promptly decided to lie down on the hangar floor. 

Luke had looked around then, really looked, thinking how the weight of Bigg’s death so soon after finding him again had finally started to settle over his shoulders, and seen a mechanic collapsed in tears near the hangar bay doors, sobbing as someone else rubbed her shoulders, while ten feet away a group of rebel soldiers danced some sort of wild jig to the discordantly jaunty sounds of a Zeltronian lute. 

That was when Luke decided he’d had enough of whatever odd mix of emotions were sweeping through the rebel base, and he ducked out through the hangar doors onto the tarmac intending to head into the quiet of the surrounding jungle. Just for a little while, just to get his head back on straight. He thought he’d seen Han in the crowd of dancers, and was glad at least someone was still able to celebrate their impossible victory untroubled by the circumstances. Leia had disappeared at least an hour before Luke, slipping out quietly with an expression far more solemn than the bright smile she’d had during the award ceremony. As Wedge was now out of commission, that didn’t leave anyone Luke knew or wanted to spend time with. It would probably be a good idea to spend some time alone. He had a lot to think about, after all. Everyone was congratulating him on firing the perfect shot, but what he’d felt in that trench had left him far more unsettled than he’d been willing to admit to anyone. He’d felt...the Force, he supposed, stronger than ever, but now there was no Ben to guide him and no clear road ahead.

When he reached the edge of the tarmac, though, looking out at a forest, green and lush like he’d only ever read about in stories or seen in holos, Luke paused. It seemed like he wasn’t going to get that time alone after all. There was a man lying in the soft loam gazing up at the stars above. He was wearing a light colored robe that contrasted sharply with his brown skin, and loose trousers that looked more like sleepwear than the rebellion-issued combat fatigues Luke had seen all through the base since he’d arrived there. The man’s feet were bare, and his left arm was strapped tightly across his chest in a sling. 

The man didn’t look over or give any sign he’d heard Luke’s approach, until he suddenly said, “You can’t make me go back. I’m comfortable here. You’ll have to drag me.” His voice sounded strained, like he desperately needed water, or as if he hadn’t spoken in some time.

“Um,” Luke began, not sure how to respond, “I wasn’t planning on it?”

The man finally turned his head, then, and Luke had to struggle not to react to the large bandage that covered most of the left side of his face, over his ear and down his neck into the collar of his robe. The bandage didn’t cover up either of his large brown eyes, which widened upon seeing Luke. 

“Oh,” he said, softly. “I thought you were the medic. Going to rat me out?”

Luke thought about it for a second. “Probably not,” he said, tentatively. “I’m sure you have a good reason for being out here.”

The man chuckled humorlessly. “Good? I don’t know. I just wanted to see the stars.” He looked away from Luke then, back up at the night sky and the red planet they orbited. “I’m Bodhi,” he offered, without looking back at Luke.

“Luke Skywalker.”

“I know.”

Luke knew too, sort of. He hadn’t known what the man looked like, but he’d heard the name Bodhi Rook whispered, along with a few others - the only surviving members of the team who’d stolen the Death Star plans. They were apparently all still recovering in the Alliance med-lab, having paid dearly for the information. Bodhi’s name had been singled out by the people who had told Luke all this, disjointedly and confusingly during the early stages of the ‘wake’. People either seemed to think he was the greatest hero of the mission, or they spat his name with a hostile tone of distrust aimed at “that twitchy pilot.” It had taken Luke probably too much time to realize that Bodhi must have recently defected from the Empire, and he only really understood the situation after Wedge had threatened to fight one of the men speaking that way, insisting that if anyone wanted to go after defectors, they should try him on for size. Everyone had stopped talking about the Rogue One crew pretty quickly after that. 

Luke was sure, given that whole situation, that Bodhi would probably rather not hear that Luke knew his name.

Luke hesitated again. Maybe Bodhi wanted to be alone (he was now pointedly ignoring Luke) but he’d as good as admitted that he’d escaped the med-bay without permission, and Luke didn’t want anything to happen to him this far from the base. So, Luke lowered himself slowly to the ground a few feet from Bodhi, and lay back to look up at the sky.

The stars lay out before him like a bottomless well. This was calm. Peaceful. With the planet in the sky above them, rotating slowly, it almost felt like flying. Luke took a deep breath, and relaxed further into the surprisingly soft forest floor.

“What are you doing?” Bodhi asked after a few minutes.

“Stargazing,” Luke replied, trying to sound casual. “You had a good idea.”

They lay in silence for a few more minutes. Luke felt his mind drifting. This was nice, but he should probably find a way to convince Bodhi to go back to the base soon. All the dirt and moss couldn’t be something the doctors wanted on his nice white bandages.

“They look different,” Bodhi said suddenly, almost startling Luke. He hadn’t expected Bodhi to talk to him again, but once he got going he apparently couldn’t stop. “I don’t even remember what they looked like, before, it took that from me too, but I know they don’t look right. I can feel it. I’m not home.”

Luke sort of knew what he meant. These weren’t the stars he’d looked at for years over Tatooine. “Where’s home?” he asked, curious.

Bodhi was quiet for so long Luke didn’t think he would answer. Then, “Jedha.”

Jedha...Luke wouldn’t have been able to place it, if it hadn’t been a name he had heard for the first time alongside Bodhi’s own from the rebels that night. The first victim of the Death Star, a test run before Alderaan. That explained why Bodhi had defected, then. “I’m sorry,” he said softly, sure that wasn’t enough. He hadn’t known what to say to Leia about her planet, either. Still didn’t. Particularly since she’d thought to comfort him about Ben before he’d fully grasped the scope of what had happened to her. 

Bodhi didn’t reply for a second. Then, “You really don’t know who I am, do you?” Luke opened his mouth to respond, but Bodhi plowed ahead, “I’m grateful, you know, though I know it won’t last. Everyone looks at me like…” he trailed off. Luke thought he had a pretty good idea what Bodhi meant. And he didn’t want to shatter Bodhi’s false idea that he had an unbiased audience at last.

“My mother died, before it happened, at least, so I don’t have to think about…” Bodhi was nearly whispering, speaking so quickly Luke almost didn’t catch what he was saying, like he was desperate to let something out but hadn’t had the opportunity yet. “And my other mom, she’d been gone for years and years, it’s why I joined up, mother couldn’t manage on her own, needed the money and we...the occupation didn’t leave a lot of options, you know? It’s not an excuse, I know it’s my fault, but...I tried. I thought I did enough. I don’t know anymore.”

Luke wasn’t really sure what to say to that, but Bodhi didn’t give him a chance to respond, saying, “I’m sorry, you probably don’t know what I’m talking about. It doesn’t matter anyway.”

“It does,” Luke said fiercely, almost surprising himself. “If you try, it always matters.” He wanted to tell Bodhi he thought he was a hero, that without him and his team stealing the plans, the Death Star would still be out there, Luke never could have done it without them, but that would mean admitting he’d heard of Bodhi, which would probably shatter whatever strange mood had formed between them.

Luke heard a rustling next to him, and turned his head to find Bodhi looking at him again, dark eyes shining in the night. His long hair was tangled and had a few leaves stuck in the back. Luke wanted to smooth it out, reach over and tuck the errant strands away from his face, but he forced his hands to stay still at his sides.

“I’m supposed to be in the med-bay,” he confessed to Luke, who had to struggle to keep a straight face at the sheer obviousness of that statement. “But some...friends of mine are there too, and I can’t...some of them are worse off than me, and they don’t deserve…” he sighed, apparently unable to finish his thought. “I just couldn’t stay there anymore. Felt like I couldn’t breathe.”

“Must have been a great escape,” Luke said, allowing himself to smile, “All the way through the base and out here, dodging medics and doctors along the way, only one good arm to work with.”

“Well, the celebration in the hangar bay certainly kept most people out of my way,” Bodhi’s mouth quirked up to match Luke’s, for just a second, before it settled again, but his eyes looked softer and less haunted than they had when Luke first arrived. 

Luke wasn’t sure he should push his luck, but he forged on recklessly anyway. “You deserve to be taken care of too, just like your friends.” Bodhi’s eyes shuttered at that, and he seemed to draw in on himself slightly, but he didn’t look away. “But you know...I’d like to stargaze some more. You should probably go back soon, but I can watch out for you if you don’t mind staying out here for a little while longer with me.”

Bodhi nodded slowly, like he knew what Luke was doing but didn’t want to call him out on it. He looked back at the stars, and Luke did the same.

When a frantic medic finally found them a half hour later, Luke managed to coax a reluctant Bodhi to his feet, and quietly walked him back to his bed in medical, where he belonged.

**Author's Note:**

> I know a ton of people have written introspective Bodhi and/or Luke after-Yavin takes, but I couldn't resist trying my hand at it. With thanks to my Irish roots and my recent attendance at a wake.


End file.
